Considering Buying a Dedicated MP3/FLAC Portable Media Player

[innerspaceboy]

Hey guys. After publishing my books, I've been struggling to come up with a new project, and the other night I had a curious idea for one. Once I start receiving a paycheck again I'd like to do something nice to celebrate. Here's what's bouncing around in my head...

Presently, I access my media library from my server on any web-enabled device, including a tablet connected to an integrated amp in my bedroom and sitting room, a Chromebook for movies in bed, and my cell for headphone and in-car listening. (I don't own a television set or use any streaming services.) I allocated 10GB per device and the server dynamically prebuffers the content as it progresses through each playlist. I usually prebuffer locally over wifi to keep my data usage in check. The server client and its various forks support gapless playback, folder-based browsing, and FLAC which are essential features for my ambient listening. Buffering/spooling time for the first track in the list is less than 0.5 seconds to playback so it's practically instantaneous.

I started thinking it might be nice to invest in a dedicated portable media player with a 512GB microSD card so I could preload about 25% of the ambient essentials portion of my library, (I have 20TB of storage), onto the device and use it exclusively for ambient drones while I work and in bed.

I researched high-capacity solid state audiophile quality media players with touch screen interface, good battery life, folder-based browsing support, gapless playback, and support for FLAC and similar lossless formats. I read listicle articles and read features and reviews on Amazon.

Based on my research so far, I'm looking at the Surfans HiFi Bluetooth Mp3 Player: F28 High Res Lossless Portable Music Player - 3.5 inch Digital Audio Player Support up to 512GB. It's Amazon's Choice Overall Pick. It supports FLAC and gapless playback. Battery life is approximately 8-12 hours. It's priced at $163.99, which is the low end of entry-level audiophile grade players.

I'm curious what my fellow music nerds think. Is the device totally superfluous based on the already stellar performance of my server client? I'm thinking I would enjoy having a dedicated media player again. The last I had was a Creative Zen X-Fi in 2008 which was a pure delight.

For those in favor of the investment, what inclines you to support it? And is this model one you would opt for or do you have another in mind like the staple audiophile $500 Fiio M11S? (That's more than I'd like to spend.) 

My thinking is that, as committed to my digital music as I am, it would make sense to have a dedicated portable device.

Here's the official product page: https://www.surfans.net/products/hifi-bluetooth-mp3-player-f28-high-res-lossless-portable-music-player-3-5-inch-digital-audio-player-32gb-support-up-to-512gb

And the Amazon listing with buyer feedback and AI question responses: https://www.amazon.com/Surfans-HiFi-Bluetooth-Mp3-Player/dp/B0C86RZMX8

I welcome being told I'm insane. Or whatever else you're thinking.

[Lexi Darling]

It seems like your setup is pretty robust and covers a lot of situations. I guess it comes down to whether you think this player would add any new functionality or would offer great enough convenience to justify the price. I think if you leave the house frequently I'd be more inclined to say it could be a good investment.

[innerspaceboy]

Thanks, @Lexi!

To clarify - my current server works on any web-enabled device anywhere in the world. If I added you as a user, you could instantly browse and consume any/all of my content.

I guess the idea with the dedicated device is that it would be exclusively for my music. I could preload the 256GB microSD with 15,000 tracks (that's the estimated capacity for the average MP3), hit "shuffle all," and have my own ambient radio station commercial-free. I know 15,000 is a cripplingly small track count compared to my server-operated library, but that's part of the nostalgic charm.

I can technically do that now on my phone, tablet, and Chromebook, with whatever selection I queue in advance. The idea is that by preloading a lot of content on a PMP, I could have a surprise factor and potentially discover music buried in my library that I wouldn't necessarily have thought to queue on my phone.

I understand that's a minor feature and technically I don't really need a PMP. I just thought it would be fun to nostalgically re-live the early 2000s in music tech.

That's my thinking.

[Trollheart]

I can't say I have an opinion, to be honest, but when you said if you added someone they would gain access to your media, does that work the same in reverse? As I have an absolute ton of movies and TV series which I know you have never seen - a whole lot of documentaries too - which you'd be more than welcome to browse and watch if you wanted. My PC doesn't ever go off (well, maybe the odd reboot or power failure) so all the content would be available whenever you wanted it. Might just be a way in, if you want it, to some great, even culturally significant shows (you've never seen the Wire or Star Trek or 24, have you?) you might be interested in seeing.

Anyway, let me know. They're all there if you want them, just advise me what I need to do to allow you to hook up. Could be a whole new world opening up for you!

TH

[innerspaceboy]

Wow; thank you, @Trollheart! That's very generous of you!

I'm keen to take you up on your kind offer. I just need to factor in that, as curious as it sounds, watching shows and films is taxing on my mind and I can only handle televisual works in very minute doses. So don't go to any trouble simply for my account. I would be curious to peruse a text index of your folder structure if you have such a thing handy?

That taxing element is precisely what has kept me from moving full-speed ahead with Jellyfin as a metadata-rich graphical navigator for my video library. (I posted briefly about that project in the Your Day thread here.) With over 7,000 films, and a significant portion of it indie content not indexed in any major web database, the project of renaming the folder and file structure so that Jellyfin can correctly interpret the trailers, movie posters, cast, crew, related viewing, etc would be arduous to say the least.

The admin of the Jellyfin forum suggested I try a robust Java app like TinyMediaManager to automate chunks of the project. I installed it, but am wary of mistakenly mis-tagging massive sectors of the library so I've held off. And as I said, as I so seldom watch anything at all, it would be a whole lot of work without much of a practical yield.

More savvy media archivists use utilities like Sonarr, a software that can monitor and download your favorite shows from RSS feeds to batch automate scraping the web for the latest episodes of all your favorite shows and tag them correctly for you. But that would have been helpful a decade ago before I constructed this massive library.

To return to the topic at hand, music is a different media animal for me. I listen to ambient music more than 12 hours every day (while awake and asleep), which is what makes me consider this PMP project, even if only for the nostalgic element circa 2008.

Maybe others will have thoughts to share about the potential investment. Thanks, everyone!

[Trollheart]

No problem. I'll see about getting a list for you. Is there a way Windows 10 will do this automatically for me, do you know? I have my shows broken up into Drama, Comedy, Historical/Period, Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy, Animated, Crime, Political and various other subdivisions, with each series and season of series in order, but I doubt it's anything like your extremely well-organised folder structure. If there's no way to do it easily I'll have to do it manually so will let you know. I should warn you, some shows are addictive, especially (for me) the Scandi-drama/Nordic Noir ones!
Cheers
TH

[innerspaceboy]

Sure thing.

Open the Command Prompt (or run "CMD.exe")

Then paste the command below, but substitute the parent folder where all your video subfolders are stored where it says "c:\", and of course substitute the drive letter and folder path to where you want to save TrollheartList.txt.

tree c:\ /f > <driveletter>:\<filepath>\TrollheartList.txt

The "/f" modifier will list every file in every folder. If you only have one video file per folder you can omit that modifier and it will only list folders in the resulting document.

Let me know if you have any trouble. Thanks!

[innerspaceboy]

A little update after performing some more research - that $500 Fiio M11S I mentioned supports up to 1TB microSDXC, but the honest simple and direct cost-effective solution is to buy a 3-year-old Android phone, root it, and stick in a 1TB microSDXC card, which is effectively a localized approach to what I'm already doing now with the server. So it seems investing in a digital audio player is really moot.

Thanks for letting me work that out. I'll stick with my server.